UNITAR CCP acting for agriculture

Climate change’s impact on agriculture is strong and leads to severe human costs, including migration, malnutrition and extreme poverty. It is therefore fundamental to find proper adaptation measures in order to strengthen food security worldwide. The problems encountered are diverse and UNITAR’s CCP programme, thru its ACCCA project, helped the implementation of diverse adaptation pilot actions for agriculture.

In Bangladesh, the adaptation processes in water logged area were hydroponics (see picture), duck rearing and ring-based vegetable cultivation and in saline prone area, adaptation processes were mat weaving by reed, reed cultivation, crab cultivation, sheep rearing and Kewra cultivation. The Kewra plants, for example, are usually cultivated on saline soils and their fruits are edible by humans and can be converted in multiple food items. Moreover, the Kewra plant, if cultivated side by side, can be used as a wind breaker and soil protector against erosion.

For detailed explanation of each technique and its implementation in local communities, please click on the link of the final report of Bangladesh.

Despite the complexity of the problem, Bangladesh, as well as the teams in Ghana, Kenya, Tunisia and Niger found out key issues and solutions for adaptation (click on the countries’ names for their reports with more information on adaptation options for agriculture).

Some projects (Tunisia & Niger) began by a survey on the understanding of climate change by local farmers. This was a necessary action in order to prepare adaptation options and understand how they will be implemented at the local level. In Kenya, the action team focused on rain-fed agriculture and realized that most of the farmers had already started adapting to their changing environment in effort to alleviate food insecurity. The adaptive measures, already existing or to be implemented, are as diverse as early or dry planting, planting of drought tolerant and early maturing crops, water harvesting using micro-catchments, terracing, planting trees and reducing water use.